[OLPC library] Scratch cartoons for physics and health education - New universal language?

[Edward Cherlin]

On Jan 29, 2008 2:38 PM, Brown, Henry, DoIT <Henry.Brown at state.nm.us> wrote:
>
>
>
> Take a look at scratch.mit.edu it is for kids to create and share cartoons.
> Many of the pictures can be taken from the web.

Excellent. We should get some of this into TuxPaint.

> I cannibalized a German cartoon about bees and flowers targeted to 1st
> graders to build RNAi, Fusion, and Power Grid cartoons.
> I am not an artist.
> Just a Dad with kids who want to cannibalize the Scratch cartoons and learn
> science in the process.
> What we need is cartoons for developing nations kids. They need a graphic
> approach to concepts.
> In Jamaica, WI as a Peace Crops volunteer I helped build water treatment
> plants, methane digestors, etc.
>
> But the biggest problem was HIV/AIDS. I did my thesis on mapping genomes
> (Human and HIV) at Los Alamos.
> My room mates were all physicists.
> How to discuss the disease with young children? Through RNA the messaging
> system for biology.
> http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/GeneMachine/51835
>
> But Physics is my son's passion.
> Where to find basic physics cartoons that motivate kids? Make them? He
> wanted fusion reactors?

Larry Gonick, The Cartoon Guide to Physics

See also Roy Doty, Wordless Workshop, which is about do-it-yourself
projects around the home. His technique should be understood by
everybody in this education space.

> So I made them:http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/GeneMachine/34906
> Cartoons are the universal language. Look at Saturday morning (Pokeman,
> Simpsons, etc.)
> The kids of today are open to manipulating objects on the web (Runescape,
> etc).
> So lets give them an interactive learning env. Lets make learning cartoons
> for kids.
> OLPC could run Scratch, Alice, etc.
> We just need armies of adults to build the cartoons. Kids will clone the
> good ones.

Schoolchildren will become the most important authors of learning
materials, if permitted.

> Henry Brown
> henry.brown at state.nm.us
> cell 795-3680
> office 505 827-2509

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay